s out three times over.

Hiram White had suffered quite a financial loss some six months before,
through that very Blueskin who was now lurking in Indian River inlet.
He had entered into a "venture" with Josiah Shippin, a Philadelphia
merchant, to the tune of seven hundred pounds sterling. The money had
been invested in a cargo of flour and corn meal which had been shipped
to Jamaica by the bark Nancy Lee. The Nancy Lee had been captured by the
pirates off Currituck Sound, the crew set adrift in the longboat, and
the bark herself and all her cargo burned to the water's edge.

Five hundred of the seven hundred pounds invested in the unfortunate
"venture" was money bequeathed by Hiram's father, seven years before, to
Levi West.

Eleazer White had been twice married, the second time to the widow West.
She had brought with her to her new home a good-looking, long-legged,
black-eyed, black-haired ne'er-do-well of a son, a year or so younger
than Hiram. He was a shrewd, quick-witted lad, idle, shiftless, willful,
ill-trained perhaps, but as bright and keen as a pin. He was the very
opposite to poor, dull Hiram. Eleazer White had never loved his son; he
was ashamed of the poor, slack-witted oaf. Upon the other hand, he was
very fond of Levi West, whom he always called "our Levi," and whom he
treated in every way as though he were his own son. He tried to train
the lad to work in the mill, and was patient beyond what the patience
of most fathers would have been with his stepson's idleness and
shiftlessness. "Never mind," he was used to say. "Levi'll come all
right. Levi's as bright as a button."

It was one of the greatest blows of the old miller's life when Levi ran
away to sea. In his last sickness the old man's mind constantly turned
to his lost stepson. "Mebby he'll come back again," said he, "and if he
does I want you to be good to him, Hiram. I've done my duty by you and
have left you the house and mill, but I want you to promise that if Levi
comes back again you'll give him a home and a shelter under this roof if
he wants one." And Hiram had promised to do as his father asked.

After Eleazer died it was found that he had bequeathed five hundred
pounds to his "beloved stepson, Levi West," and had left Squire Hall as
trustee.

Levi West had been gone nearly nine years and not a word had been heard
from him; there could be little or no doubt that he was dead.

One day Hiram came into Squire Hall's office with a lette